Problems With the Solution Resurfaces

I’m SO stoked.

I finally found a link to my 2000 New Times cover story, Problems With the Solution.

It’s here:

http://archive.newtimesslo.com/archive/2003-09-11/archives/cov_stories_2000/cov_07062000.html

That story, because it's over a decade old, had fallen off the archives section of the New Times web site, but, just today, I stumbled on the link.

And I am very, very proud of that ten-year-old story, which, oddly, is STILL 100-percent relevant today (in fact, I’ll be including it in my Pulitzer application early next year as “supplemental material,” along with some of my other published stories on Los Osos.)

Problems With the Solution is the story where I first exposed how the “better, cheaper, faster” scam that the husband and wife team of Pandora Nash-Karner and Gary Karner used to plunge Los Osos into a 12-year-and-counting disaster just so they could make money, was on the verge of failing.

And here’s the best part: Less than one month after Problems With the Solution was published, “better, cheaper, faster” failed, following a nearly two year, futile pursuit by the Los Osos CSD – absolutely awesome journalism... if I do say so myself... and I do.

One quick highlight (of the many) from
Problems With the Solution: In the 1998 letter that I recently exposed from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, addressed directly to the Karners that clearly showed them, nearly a full year BEFORE they were able to trick the town’s voters into signing off on their fake, made-up project (just so they could make money), that their fake project was a complete disaster, it says that the Karners were using “unrealistically low” numbers in connection with their scam.

Now, take that “unrealistically low” quote from January 1998, and plug it into the part in Problems With the Solution, where I write about how “Costs Escalate.”

Unbelievably excellent.

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[47 weeks down... 5 to go.]